"Today is a Good Day to Drive!" .....Van-Go

April 21, 2008 Moonset and Sunrise. What a scene to wake up to!!! We took our morning constitutional along the Black River to the dam at the spring that creates the river. We spent the rest of the day hanging out at the Cottonwood BLM picnic area.

April 20, 2008 At the BLM Cottonwood picnic area Kathy colored her hair; she looks like a new woman. Will puzzled and played his guitar. We had lunch and headed back over to Carlsbad Cavern; we can get back in to the cave today on our pass we decided to go in the natural entrance and spent the afternoon under ground. The natural entrance is a lot of switchbacks that lead you down, down, down under the ground deeper and deeper until it is so dark you can’t see. There you wait till your eyes adjust to the twilight then you continue. We admired all of the formations, wrapped our coats tight around, as it was just 55 degrees down there. Back up on the surface, we took the elevator up, we made some dinner- we are trying to eat healthy, then walked the desert trail to the amphitheater where we watched the bats come out from the very same entrance we had gone in just hours before. There were about 20 bats a second and two hours later there were still some coming out! We watched the moonrise t...

April 19,2008 Sunrise was beautiful out on the desert. We took our time going out the gypsum road. On our way out we spotted some wildlife: Jackrabbits, flock of 32 turkey, rabbits, vultures eating road kill, two coyotes running away from something, cows, and three pretty horses trotting along together. We arrived early at the parking area and made some breakfast. Will practiced guitar while Kathy did some journals. The Rangers arrived about the same time as the others in the group. There were about 16 of us. We had to hike about half a mile to get to the cave; a half mile straight up! Well there were some switchbacks and part of the way is at the edge of the hillside! We made it okay with time to spare; the tour started at 10am sharp. Our guides were Stella in the lead and Andy in the back. Stella took a head count; we felt bad for the couple with a teenage boy that had seen the group and tagged along. They didn’t have reservations or tickets so could not come into the cave with us. T...

April 18, 2008 Carlsbad Caverns is getting a new visitor center. Since the old one is under construction they have about eight trailers set up to house the gift shop, food service, ticket office, ranger station and restrooms. We talked with Ranger Dave Thomas about Slaughter Canyon Cave tour and signed up tomorrow. He is a friend of our friend from Big Bend NP, retired ranger Doug Thompson, so we shared a few stories about times with Doug at Castalon. We took the Big Room Cave Tour. The elevator still brings you down over seven hundred feet. There are no restrooms or food service down there due to the construction. We spent over four hours walking on the paved trail through Carlsbad Cavern. What a grand sight seeing the formations huge and tiny. We took in everything from great columns to thin soda straws to massive draperies to gnarly popcorn and all the “tites” and “mites” in between. The 9-mile loop auto tour through the Chihuahuan Desert called Desert Drive was a wonderful way to...

April 17, 2008 Just as Kathy was looking at the sun coming up over the mountains through the back window a highway patrol pulled up and asked if we were okay. Took a nice walk this morning down the paved Ranch Road 1832 and saw some javelina grazing along the side of the road. Will decided to chase them off, but one stood his ground and Kathy yelled for Will to stop before the Javelina charged him! We drove in to Belmorhea and found a tree to park under and have breakfast. We parked along the city canal and got a wifi hit so did a little emailing too. We found a quonzitt hut and parked trying to get some shade. Nothing for miles. We made some lunch. Will played on the computer and Kathy took advantage of the heat to nap. Pecos has a museum and a replica of Roy Bean’s office, and the old train station is soon to be home of the Texas Rodeo Museum. The town looks like it went through a disaster of some sort. Much of it is boarded up. From Pecos to Carlsbad the land is flat and wild with...

April 16, 2008 We stopped at the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center and Botanical Gardens, 507-acres of grassland, rocks and desert just outside of Fort Davis . ( http://www.cdri.org/ ) We made the same mistake we did years ago going in the drive across the street that ends up at a rehab center so had to turn around and go in the drive across the street. There were lots of feeders for humming birds outside on the wide roofed porch of the visitor center. The display of rocks from different periods of time was very interesting as was the small tree, a living relic dating back to the dinosaur days. We did a little more internetting and made the first step toward our summer trip to Siberia-we booked our airfare to Moscow!!! Ambassador Travel in Pittsburgh is handling everything for us. We stopped for ice cream in Fort Davis and caught this sign on the building-love it! Then, we drove on thru the pillars of rocks to the rest area outside of town where we made dinner, chicken salad, did some m...

April 15, 2008 We stopped at the Study Butte post office and sent off our income taxes, doing out part to help finance the federal government. Seventy miles to Alpine. It was good because t reminded Through the desert, past a few 6000 foot mountains, over the hills and right before you get into town there was an inspection station where all vehicles stop and are subject to inspection. We were just asked how many were in our vehicle, are we US citizens and told to “go on.” We stopped at picnic area where we had a mouse drop down from the roof of our black van, and ran across Kathy’s legs. In Alpine we did some internetting in the shade of the motel, we did laundry across the street, filled up on gas for $3.36 a gal, did some shopping-only $100, got propane for $18 at Alpine RV and they let us fill up on water too, made some phone calling and came up with a plan for the next day or so. Had lunch and relaxed a bit at the Confederate Col. Bruster monument for which Bruster County was named...